We are breathing bamboo these days. Madly propagating plants for the islands. Harvesting poles from our plantation for inventory and small scale projects like our new “bambooth” and beautiful carport. Yay! We are so excited about all the potential building applications on the islands. It is amazing to be intimately involved with the plants and the people that do so much to care for our home here on Maui. Mahalo and let the sun keep shining.
Our first structure with our home grown bamboo.
Today we have been working on the treatment center. We hope to get it running before the bamboo shooting finishes so we can harvest right away. I have been putting a coat of rubber based roofing paint on some plywood that will serve as lids for the borate storage tanks. Doug, Rich, and Eli have been working on putting the plumbing on the treatment center. Scott and Jacob have been chipping away on the reforestation project; planting, repotting, and other such projects. Thanks to all mentioned and unmentioned in keeping our project running and working so that we can all continue to participate.
Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.
Brian Tracy
The pressure treatment vessel for our bamboo is here. We have been gearing up for this stage for a long time. Our first harvest will come soon and we will most likely have certified organic and biodynamic bamboo poles for sale in the new year. There is still much to do to get it operational and we are most likely a month out till our first batch goes through the steps of treatment. Here are some great photos of the day it came to the farm.
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I’ve been talking about the propagation for a while now, and I figured that I would tell you how we are doing it.
When propagating bamboo, there are multiple ways to go about it. For different bamboo species, it differs. We have been working with Malay Dwarf for a while and that is the species that I will be explaining for you.
The first step we take is gathering the bamboo for propagation. To propagate for this variety, we need something to take cuttings from. We take the cuttings from shoots that are at least three years old. In order to tell the age, we have to count the branches on the nodes. There must be at least five branches on at least one of the nodes on the shoot to be at least three years old. Here is a diagram of what I’m talking about.
The filled areas are branches, and the numbers represent what year of the plants life that branch grew.
Once we have found a shoot that is old enough, we cut it out of the clump and bring it over to the nursery for step two.
The next step is to trim all the extra branches off leaving only the strongest branch. that branch would then be cut to the second node, and the shoot would be cut on both sides of the node leaving it looking like this.
Finally your ready to plant. Using a 4 inch pot and custom potting soil bury the cutting with soil and pack the soil making sure to leave the bottom of the branch completely covered. Water very well and admire the new plants you have now created.
New leaves will grow within a couple of weeks if you did well. the finished product looks like this.
And here is some great photo’s from around the farm for your enjoyment.
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All photo’s by Nolin Vultrus.
The construction crew working has now finished the footer for the quonset hut. The stem wall pour comes next, and then after that, the concrete floor. All of our achievements always excite us and make us feel grateful for the blessings of this life.
The other workers went back up into our most recent planting and finished weeding the young plants and replacing the ones that the California grass swallowed. We replaced the empty spots with 10 Kokui, 13 Koa, and 5 Sandlewood trees!
P.S. If my posts seem a little boring, please forgive me, I’m still figuring out life (haha Ryan Funny edit) the details of this website. Any comments on my postings would be appreciated.
Today we cleaned the Atter bamboo. The team used sawzall’s to cut shoots that were too small or to crowded. This afternoon’s work is going to be propagating Malay Dwarf keikis. We have been making these starts for a while now, and are about halfway to our (don’t quote me on this. I’m probably wrong) 1,000 keiki goal. For more information on bamboo propagation, I found this website. Bamboo Propagation
Quote of the week:
When I was walking down the hill, I felt like Godzilla. Walking all slow going “rawr rawr rawr”
Hello, this is Nathan, the new writer for the blog. This is my first post WOOT WOOT!
Not much is going on at the farm today. I did catch some cool pics of Ryan working. I’ll be posting them soon.
Last day of May, and and the crew had a nursery day. Nathan got the hedger out and cleaned up the Malay Dwarf hedge that serves as a windbreak for one of the hardening off zones. Eli and Keori harvested air layers off some of the bamboo that were put on awhile back. Jade dug up textilis, divided them, and potted them. Allison spent the day weeding and organizing the trees in the nursery.
And Virginia, well she got the paths in the garden sheet mulched with cardboard, palm fronds, and palm sheaths with organic matter on top. The farm house looks and feels especially spring cleaned, just in the nick of time before the month of May was over. She always does such a great job wherever she goes. Yay Virginia!
okay, okay, okay. How many times a day do I say okay???? The purpose of this blog is to learn more about how to import photos more efficiently. Let’s see how I do.
Aloha. We had a good bit of rain over night and a gorgeous day so far. We had a great morning in the bamboo. First, we started with guava patrol. Clipping guavas down at ground level, underneath the mat of grass. We worked our way through an area that had been left for quite a while. For the second half of the morning we went into one of the guadua beds and continued doing maintenance on the clumps. Those thorns are gnarly. We all did real well, coming out in the end with minimal damage.
